Like you, I can vend
Memory — put coin in a slot.
Maybe it hangs there, clung
to a wormgear, an auger. Maybe,
it plunks down in a pit behind a hinge
that always yearns to take your arm,
your shoulder, the all of us
lit nigh to salivation — each gloss
bag of us so carefully arrayed,
not by price but by temptation, like
the day I copped my brother’s weed
rendered not in actual size. Or
the nougat of my long dead dad,
stood and smartly allayed. Like
the day she lost our baby, packed
by weight not volume, on a high
rung but avoided, averted as too sour
when craving salt or sweet biscuit.
Fact is, when choosing between
A4 or D5 or even G17, we must
see first our vaporous selves in the glass,
our thin transparent selves, peered
through, indecisive and consumed
in our own garish machine.
Image: Marc Noorman on Unsplash
Sweet and Bitter Greens 
This is a really strong poem, and difficult. Especially if we apply it to ourselves. The ending is superb. I don’t know if I’ll every use a vending machine again! Well done.
Me either, and thank you. TBH, I was a bit frightened of this piece while writing it.
D
I’m glad you posted it.